Andy Murray
 

Much as I don't care much for this young man I'm glad that a Brit has finally won a grand slam. It certainly tops off a great summer of British sport.

Re: Andy Murray
 

Ditto, can't stand the guy.

Re: Andy Murray
 

I just hope that when the Sports Personality of the Year takes place it is remembered that two qualities are required to win it...

Re: Andy Murray
 

Ouch

Re: Andy Murray
 

No chance of Murray winning it then!:lol:

Re: Andy Murray
 

You know him personally do you?

Re: Andy Murray
 

It always amazes me how people can dislike a guy so much when they really know nothing about him. Almost everyone that I have seen quoted or seen on TV that knows him says he is a great guy with a good sense of humour. However, because we always only see him when he is interviewed (something he admits freely to hating), we decide we dont like him.

Same with Hamilton
Same with Steve Davies to an extent

An excellent result and I hope very much now that he goes on to win many more grand slams including Wimbledon next year.

Re: Andy Murray
 

I did say on here after he won Gold at the Olympics that it would give him a lot of confidence for the future - and now look!

He seems to me to be someone who is actually very shy and thus awkward in front of the cameras, which doesn't strike me as a reason to dislike someone. I prefer that to the extremely slick, media trained sort who come across as not the type to buy a used car from.

Re: Andy Murray
 

I doubt he does, he has to go on how the guy conducts himself in public, his tantrums on the court, and of course his dislike of the English will never endear him to many south of the border. Yes, McEnroe had his tantrums but I never liked him either, and Murray will never be the player that Nadal and Federer are, and they both conduct themselves like gentlemen. No tantrums, just get on with job. Great ambassadors for the sport.

Re: Andy Murray
 

Agree! Well said and spot on.

Re: Andy Murray
 

So let me get this right. You dont like people who express emotions in the heat of the moment like Murray & McEnroe, and you dont like people who dont express emotions like Murray under interview. In Public he has come accroos very well afaik ..... even in TV quiz programmes :eek:.

I think I'm getting there, but not sure, although many of the very best sportsmen have been those that have the odd tantrum now and again because they are so caught up in their game :)

Re: Andy Murray
 

Federer I would agree with you about, but Nadal has been getting very petulant of late and his deliberate time wasting before taking his serve as a tactic to unsettle his opponents is bad sportsmanship.

Re: Andy Murray
 

I love Andy Murray. He has a great sense of humour and, I imagine, a great personality. I hope this is the first of many for him.

And I'm very very tired (but happy) today :-)

Re: Andy Murray
 

Nadal's actually been getting quicker at serving as the years have gone on. When he first started he used to get regular warnings from the umpire

Nothing to do with bad sportsmanship, its just one of his habits

Ironically Andy Murray is probably the best British sportsman of the past 20 years. One of the best 4 in the world in a very strong era, consistently for the past 5 years, in one of the big sports

However, the British media and their flock always fail to recognise a good or a bad sportsman. Paul Scholes has been the best British footballer over the past 20 years and they only realised that once he retired from the England team

Everyone I met in Spain said in a flash that Paul Scholes was the best England player

British people prefer celebrities to sportsman

Re: Andy Murray
 

Do I need too to form an opinion? Have you never had an opinion about someone you have never met personally or are you just defending Murray?

Re: Andy Murray
 

I guess the answer to that from my point of view is that if you dont know a person then it is rather difficult to form an accurate opinion about a person, and in this case that seems to be bourne out by comments in the media from people who actually know him :);)

Re: Andy Murray
 

Ear, Ear, the lads done good.:thumbup::thumbsup:

Re: Andy Murray
 

Quite correct, Paul Scholes has been the best England player for many years as well as the best thing to come out of Old Trafford. Because he keeps his head down and gets on with family life the stupid media have little interest. Look how they fawn over Rooney and his stupid wife and Beckham in the early days (although he has done a lot recently to redeem himself) and God forbid Lampard and John Terry and their never ending off pitch nonsense.

Re: Andy Murray
 

Exactly. It's always going to be subjective. You can only form an opinion based on what you see, hear and read. It may well and often does change when you meet the person in the flesh.

Re: Andy Murray
 

I totally agree with you .... thats why I am saying that I am surprised that so many people have such a bad opinion of him, knowing so little about him.

Re: Andy Murray
 

I read a few articles about Fred Perry in the run-up to this year's Wimbledon, and it's quite ironic really that he was disliked by the tennis "establishment" as they didn't consider him to be a gentleman, and he was also seen as arrogant.

Maybe the UK would do better to stick with the oiks on the basis of their record of achievement, as the chinless wonders we've had in the intervening 76 years don't seem to have done terribly well, do they?:lol:

Re: Andy Murray
 

As far as the general public who cast the votes, are concerned they can only judge from what they see in the media and mainly on the TV.

On such occasions he appears to have about as much personality as a dead sheep to those who are even able to endure his cringeworthy interviews, so even if he is the bundle of fun some claim him to be away from the public eye,it's understandable that Joe Public finds it very difficult to swallow.

After so many years of practice,I would have thought by now he'd learn to lighten up a bit,crack the odd joke or even manage a smile of sorts, but no he never even seems to make the effort.

Unfortunately the worst is yet to come after he retires and the BBC or ITV begin to regularly wheel him out as a Tennis pundit to match the cringeworthy performances of Steve Boring Davis and Steven Hendry in the world of Snooker. :eek:

Re: Andy Murray
 

He might have more credibility as a tennis pundit than Tim Henman does, though. Every time I hear him saying that a player either should be doing, or have done, something different I just think "well, what would you know about it, you never won a thing you useless prat!". Same goes for Andrew Castle. They do have the requisite tailor's dummy looks, I suppose.

Re: Andy Murray
 

It would seem that many of Murray's critics still resent a bit of light-hearted banter about 'anyone but England'. Ironically, they also accuse him of having no sense of humour. Ho hum.

Re: Andy Murray
 

His comments about the English were said very early in his career, and he has admitted that he greatly regrets ever saying it, He also has to face the most stupid questions immediately after matches. Steve Davis was the same, being asked after a 30+ frame world snooker final, 'do you think potting the pink in the 4th frame was really the turning point' He didn't even answer, but years later when asked as similarly stupid question he did reply, 'well I think the potting of the brown in frame 3 was really the turning point'.
I really suspect that the win at the Olympics, where he beat both Federer and Djokovic has been the turning point, and I suspect that this was the first
of many.

Re: Andy Murray
 

They do.

I'm all for a bit of banter, the problem with Murrays delivery of the immortal line was that it was said without the hint of a smile and not with any sense of irony. That though as we have learnt is the lads on screen persona.

Another Scot last night on the TV during an experiment with acid dipped a coin into a glass of acid and remarked about whether we should be dipping the Queens head into acid and said "well she's not the Queen of Scotland" so it's no wonder that some Brits are getting a bit fed up with the banter.

Re: Andy Murray
 

I have to agree with this, I am glad he won, but he looks as though he has stood in dog sh7t all the time, he's a multi millionaire, got a beautiful girlfriend and owns two ex council semi detached houses in Aberdeen, what more could he want? :rofl:

Re: Andy Murray
 

Have you ever seen Bernie Ecclestone look happy?:rofl:

Re: Andy Murray
 

I hear he is a hoot and really funny amongst his friends though. :rofl:

Re: Andy Murray
 

Well of course, that will be what attracted them to become friends with the billionaire Bernie Ecclestone in the first place.:rofl:

Re: Andy Murray
 

I would let him bang me for a million, how about you? :blink::eek:

Re: Andy Murray
 

Come on Lynn you have had plenty of time to make a decision, yes or no, to one million quid, to have Bernie Eccleston, humping the bones of yer. Lol

Re: Andy Murray
 

:rofl:

To be fair Bernie wasn't so bad when he had that Big Blonde Bimbo alongside him, but when she ran off with a big pile of his dough, his smile seemed to fade away somewhat.

Re: Andy Murray
 

+1 how ignorant to make a post just to criticise one of britains best sportsmen

Re: Andy Murray
 

About the Scottish/English thing, does it really matter - it's mostly a joke on both sides, like the English/French thing, isn't it?

The French aren't cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys, the Scots aren't better fighters than the English, and the latter don't all fall on their knees when Prince Charles passes by.

Andy Murray did us all proud, and it's his coach's fault that he doesn't smile more, it's a strategy to frighten his opponents. Imagine if he was allowed to serve in a kilt?

Re: Andy Murray
 

and one of his closest "friends", regular meetings, meals etc just happens to be......
Sebastian Vettel.

keeping onside with the guy who owns much of F1 is useful for the driver and his team

Re: Andy Murray
 

the biggest problem for any sportsman (or woman) is the armchair pundit.
they know so much about so little. they ridicule people because they aren't No1, even when they are consistantly in the top 5 of The World.
from an armchair that counts as a failure.

Murray dun good, as has Hamilton in a great weekend for the country at the end of a fantastic Olympics and Para Olympics.

It is these people who are putting the Great into Britain
:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Re: Andy Murray
 

Not really, the opinion of armchair pundits should never make any difference to professional sportsman, if they are truly professional.

Steve boring Davis was world champion for many years and all the crap that was thrown at him didn't appear to affect his game.
He was a great player in his day, but he was also a boring fart both on and off the table, .......still is come to that.

The punters who directly or indirectly pay the wages of these superstars are as entitled to air their opinions as is anyone else.

Just because a guy is number one at something, doesn't make him a God who should never be criticised in any way.

Re: Andy Murray
 

Who on this thread has critisciesd him? There is a huge difference between criticising someone and having an opinion on same which has obviously passed you by.

Re: Andy Murray
 

It won't be a joke if Alex Salmomd wins his planned referendum and Scotland breaks away from the rest of the UK. It will be disastrous for both sides of the border.
The French were extremely valiant in both the First and Second World Wars, more so in the first, it's a shame that in the 2nd WW their Generals mis-judged the situation completley. De Gaulle was and should be remembered as a chancer and a coward. God knows how he had the nerve (or the opportunity) to ride into Paris ahead of the Allied liberators.